


Metamorphosis

by Launchycat



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angels, Angst, Blood and Gore, Demons, Fallen Angels, Gen, Hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-12
Updated: 2014-04-12
Packaged: 2018-01-19 01:32:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1450357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Launchycat/pseuds/Launchycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The agony of a Falling angel and its aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Metamorphosis

**Author's Note:**

> I originally only posted this on Tumblr, but after some reflection I decided I'd put it up here as well. Original description below.
> 
> \-------------
> 
> So I wrote a drabble. It’s not really fanfic, but it’s relevant to at least a couple of fandoms I’m in, and chances are, you’ll be seeing the reasoning behind it rear its head in my fanworks as well when the subject comes up.
> 
> Basically, I got thinking about angels and demons (the ex-angel kind) and themes like the Fallen angel’s Grace being taken from them, aversion to holy items or their original name, as well as reasons why souls are important for the individual sides/what the point of tormenting souls in Hell is in the first place.
> 
> Specifically, how all those relate to the way demons function - why losing their Grace makes them averse to holy energy, and just how they can manage to be as powerful as angels when they’re missing the bit that’s meant to give them their “juice” in the first place.
> 
> Sure, you can handwave that all as “magic” or “it’s just how the process works”, but I don’t like doing that. I like poking at things with a stick, taking them apart and putting them back together time and time again until I find a shape where all the pieces I have fit.
> 
> So I wrote this to order some thoughts I’d been having for a while.

There is power in suffering. It’s a rarely-spoken truth, but pain – not that of a papercut or a grazed knee, but pure, agonising pain – leaves behind a strong mark – a lingering, twisted presence – on the victim, and on the world at large.

To take an angel – a being born of light and hope and love before the young planet below it was anything more than an idea –, to reach into their very essence as they stand there helplessly, with no means for them to fight back, and to tear their Grace – the core of what makes an angel an angel – out of their chests, sending the screaming remains plummeting to the ground in a ball of fire and burning feathers and flesh… the mark never goes away.

The former angel lies curled up on the ground - a whimpering, shivering shape in a blood-soaked crater, grasping onto one broken arm with the other and pulling up the blister-filled, smouldering remains of their once-radiant wings around themselves in a futile attempt to shield themselves from agony that they cannot escape. They want to scream again, but their voice was already gone long before they ended their descent.

The pain searing through every inch of their body and all the way into their astral essence is joined by the knowledge that their suffering was brought on by kin. The ones they would have, not long ago, gone to for love and comfort; the ones they cherished and admired; the ones they saw as brothers and sisters; the one they saw as Mother and Father - all have cast them out and left them to suffer, alone and rejected.

The dark, invisible force that started taking shape from those last, painful moments in Heaven clings to its source, growing stronger with each helpless shiver and blood-stained tear. It sways, and twists, powerful but with no autonomy of its own, flowing toward the nearest available anchor point. It hovers around the torn, grace-shaped void at the centre of the tortured being it spawned from, slamming against the frayed essence around it.

The once-angel doesn’t think – their senses overwhelmed by the ordeal of the Fall, every corner of their mind begging for an end to the pain; and end to the torment, and an end to the emptiness inside them. The darkness pours in, filling up the void and taking its shape, twisting itself into a perverted version of that which its anchor is so desperately trying to will back.

The marks of the descent to Earth – the charred flesh, the melted feathers – remain, but the wounds from the impact with the ground begin to heal; bones mend, cuts close. Pain lingers, but it is no longer crippling. The void inside is gone, hastily replaced by something new and strange and… wrong. It is as far from Grace as anything can be, and part of its new owner just wants to rip it back out and cast it aside. But fear of the emptiness, fear of reliving the torment and agony and helplessness wins over, and the unnerving, _unholy_ energy is allowed to settle.

Some time later, once aches have dulled and tears have dried out, the demon stands up, not quite sure what to do next.


End file.
